As things began to settle down post Covid, the world once again appeared more accessible and so, in January 2023, John and I packed our bags and headed off to Vietnam.
It’s probably not the first place you would associate with brewing but Vietnam has a long established beer scene that emerged during the French occupation and they have a high consumption per head. By volume, the market is dominated by the Sabeco Brewery, which has a 43% share of the market. It is 54% owned by ThaiBev (a privately owned company) with the rest being owned by the State Capital Investment Corporation, the state-owned investment fund. You will find their lagers across the country: Bia Saigon, Lager, Special and 333, all designed for warmer weather but worth drinking and very good value. The cheapest beer we found was 10,000 dong (about 37p) for a 330ml can in an independent supermarket. Some of their beer is produced by themselves and others by third parties across the country.
The next biggest brewery is Heineken, who also brew Tiger Beer and the domestic brand, Larue. Before the pandemic their share was reported to be 25% but locals believe that this has reduced with the brand no longer being as visible as it once was. All the same, in financial terms, they were larger than Sabeco, probably due to their beers being more expensive. In third place is Habeco, known for its Hanoi Beer brand, with a 15% share. They concentrate their sales around Hanoi. There is also another international brewer, Carlsberg, at 8%. The Carlsberg brand is not very prominent with their local brand, Huda Beer, appearing more frequently.
That leaves about 9% for the burgeoning microbreweries, of which there are estimated to be around 90. However, as in the UK, this is a movable feast with the fall out from the pandemic having a noticeable impact, particularly in the many areas of the country which are heavily reliant on tourists. This was made worse by both the bars and tap rooms which sell craft beers being biased towards local middle classes, ex pats as well as tourists, with their beers priced at around 145,000 dong (£5.50) for a pint of draught and 95,000 dong for a 330ml bottle (£3.50); a big difference from the 30,000 dong for a beer from the bigger brewers.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City between them have around 75% of the microbreweries, with the others being scattered around the country. Some of the bigger craft brewers have multiple tap rooms but just the one brewery. Two examples of this are 7 Bridges and Pasteur Street.
Pasteur Street is reported to be one of the first craft breweries. Set up in 2015, it brews just outside Ho Chi Minh City. The brewery was the brainchild of an American, John Reid, who was living in Vietnam. However, he couldn’t brew. He found his brewer in Boulder, Colorado in the form of Alex Violette, who, at the time, was the head brewer of Upslope Brewing Company. Their first tap room was in Pasteur Street, in the old part of the City, hence the name. As you would expect given its founders, their beer range is dominated by American style beer, although many of the beers use local ingredients. Their flagship beer is a Jasmine IPA, which was brewed even before the brewery was set up. These days, Alex is the CEO, having given up his brewing role, and he is assisted by his wife.
Pasteur Street have gradually expanded their chain of tap rooms to five in Ho Chi Minh City and one in Hanoi. For a while, they also had a tap room in the lovely, historic town of Hoi An. This closed fairly recently and the outlet was taken over by 7 Bridges Brewing in addition to their tap rooms in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. We met Englishman Travis Hodges, the creative director of 7 Bridges, at the opening of the tap room in Hoi An in January 2023. He echoed the problems that the craft beer market has in attracting more locals because of the price differential. He also mentioned the difficulty in having an outlet in Hoi An, which is classified as an historic area and so has strict regulations as to what can and can’t be done with its buildings, somewhat akin to Historic England’s Grade listings.
7 Bridges brew nearby in Da Nang, which is a very busy modern city with huge tourist hotels and resorts with lovely beaches. It is also a developing tech hub; something which often seems to have a link with craft beer! The brewery was founded in 2017 by an American, Stanley Boots. He was assisted for several years by Californian Darren Provenzano who has now moved to Portland to set up the Fracture Brewery. Stanley is now the company’s chairman with Saori Ushimi, the chief executive, being a welcome female face in what is still a male dominated industry. As with Pasteur Street, 7 Bridges see themselves as having a mission to do good in the local community. They also pride themselves on their zero waste initiatives.
Another brewery with an English employee is Heart of Darkness, who have a brewery north of Ho Chi Minh City, with a tap room in the city itself. In a classic example of small world syndrome, John Mather is a former London brewer, having worked at Gipsy Hill, London Beer Factory and By The Horns. How he got to Heart of Darkness is an interesting story. John saw an advert for a brewing job in Crafty Pint (a website for the Australian beer industry) and decided to apply, not realising it was in Vietnam! He got the job and never looked back. Heart of Darkness was also set up by an American, John Pemberton (now the chief executive). He got together some friends living in Vietnam (one of whom was English) and established the brewery in 2016. Like most tap rooms in Vietnam, food is available; sometimes burgers, pizzas etc and sometimes local dishes. The Heart of Darkness menu had one twist, fish and chips, influenced no doubt by the English involvement in the brewery. Surprisingly, their second tap room is not in Vietnam but in Singapore and they have a thriving export business, sending their beers to nearby Thailand and Cambodia as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia.
The placing of the breweries separate from the tap rooms in the main cities is, no doubt, done on cost grounds but one brewery, East West breaks that model with their brewery and tap room in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s a huge area dominated by the brewery, with the front being more like a bar and having a sunken area with tables for dining (and drinking). To the left is a large glass fridge where barrel ageing takes place! One of the tap room staff explained that the brewery was committed to supporting local farmers. He too bemoaned the problem of getting locals to try craft beer due to the huge price differential in comparison with mass produced beers. Regardless, East West were looking to expand and had their eyes on another pub brewery in Da Nang. He also took the time to tell us about the history of the brewery and its four founders.
The name East West reflects the fact that the brewery was founded (in 2017) by people from different continents. The idea behind the brewery came from Loc Truong, who was born in Vietnam but studied at San Diego University in the USA, where he met Steve Gutiérrez and where together they developed a passion for beer. Steve went into the hospitality sector and Loc to Anheuser-Busch InBev. They kept in contact even when Loc returned home and, several years later, they decided to set up a brewery. They were joined by Canadian Shawn Scott who has a culinary and management background and ex Portland, Oregon brewer, Sean Thommen, who studied brewing in both the USA and Germany.
But, as in the UK, not all breweries made it through the pandemic. The Hoi An Brewing Company couldn’t keep going once Hoi An became a ghost town with no tourists. There was however a silver lining as Ryan Leatham, the brewery’s founder, told us.
Ryan gave up his job and sold his house to go travelling, first to South America and eventually reaching Vietnam, where he stayed. He was going to get married but his wife to be said he couldn’t spend all day on the beach and that he needed to get a job. He didn’t know what to do but, having previously been a home brewer, he decided to set up what would be the first brewery in Hoi An. He found some premises and ordered a 240 litre brewing kit. At this point his fiancée left him. Ryan was too committed by then and so went ahead with the venture, opening in 2017. Most of the time Ryan ran the tap room and the brewery on his own with a help of a friend but she had to return home due to family illness. Then Covid struck and the impact went on and on. Eventually, he decided to throw in the towel but there was some positive news in store. Californian Shaun Stevens used to buy beer from Ryan for his wife’s bar in Hue, in the middle of Vietnam. Called Imperial Craft Bia, it was set up in 2019 with a view to showcasing Vietnamese craft beer. They had space to spare and Shaun approached Ryan to move the brewery to the pub and so the bar became a brewpub in 2021.
Ryan, like brewers all over, appreciates hearing feedback directly from the drinkers. He likes to experiment but usually brews a couple of IPAs and a Pilsner. There is a commitment to the on-site brewery; a large fridge was in the process of being installed during our visit so that the taps could be connected directly to chilled beer. Shaun explained that this would enable them to expand the number of beers on tap and maybe in the future they might do some small pack. Unlike many tap rooms, Imperial offers a little more, stocking beers from a range of Vietnamese breweries, including Heart of Darkness.
Although many craft beer bars have closed because of the pandemic, one of the better ones we visited was also in Hue. The Cham Beer and Whisky bar is part of a small hotel and the range of beers was impressive. For a change there was more on sale than just the American IPAs and Pale Ales; there was actually a range of dark beers.
When it comes to finding beer, Hoi Chi Minh City and Hanoi are well served with a number of tap rooms. Also, in these two cities, it isn’t unusual to find bar/restaurants serving Vietnamese craft beer, particularly those from 7 Bridges and Pasteur Street. This wasn’t always the case where, despite signs saying ‘Craft Beer’, the beers were only from the large brewers, something all too familiar to us in the UK, when brewers jump on the bandwagon.
So, what of the future? In 2020, Vietnam was placed number nine on the list of the world’s largest beer consumers, with consumption growing at 40% since 2010. There is a growing middle class and the population is young (25% are between 16 and 30), just the ideal future market for craft beer. Given that people have developed a taste for global ideals and standards and that tastes and preferences are changing, this augurs well for the future. Overall, it has to be said that provided tourists continue to visit to provide a backbone of interest and sales, the market looks pretty rosy for micro brewing in Vietnam.
Although out of date, a useful link is https://www.ratebeer.com/breweries/vietnam/0/218/ and for more photos and details on the tap rooms etc see https://cryneinyourbeer.sitelio.me.
Christine Cryne